OT: Coronavirus

I guess it's that 98% survival rate if you get it that has me worried.... ;)

Corona, SARS, West-Nile, Avian Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Ebola, the Damn mosquito-borne virus thingy.....
Still waiting for one of these things to kill me, but DAMMIT....

Take away a man's toilet paper, and there really is no reason to live

@"Vanguard83" said: Corona, SARS, West-Nile, Avian Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Ebola, the Damn mosquito-borne virus thingy..... Still waiting for one of these things to kill me, but DAMMIT....

Take away a man's toilet paper, and there really is no reason to live

So I was one of the assholes that went and bought extra stuff but I did it a month or longer ago.  I figured it would be helpful to not need to go into a store as often if the SHTF....but with our tornado I've given most of it away to the victims.  Alls I know is I'm going to be pissed if I can't wipe my ass!!!!

@"pattersaur" said:

@"Skodin" said:

@"pattersaur" said:

I've been washing my hands more lately, that's for sure. I had some tentative travel plans for mid-April to the Bay Area as well actually, that I don't think I'll be making. Other than that I'm just hoping for the best for everyone. It will be a great day when this disease-- and the fears around it-- pass.

and the vile permission and promotion of wet markets, especially ones that contain rare live wildlife

Yeah. There are so many cultural differences that I don't understand and I'm not super informed on this topic to begin with, but I did read China announced they're shutting these markets down again. They shut it down previously for SARS but then reopened it. If this is the global consequence for eating rare live animals, then hopefully people can find something else to snack on.

March madness will be held without fans.

Warriors vs Nets on Thursday will be played without fans.

@"StickyBun" said:

@"kmillard" said: i am headed to brussels in two weeks unless they shut down all air travel.  Everyone just turn off the news for a month and all will be fine.

I don't think you are going to make it to Brussels.....for example, Norwegian Air has cancelled 3000 flights until mid June internationally. Its going to get worse before it gets better.

University of Minnesota cancels in-person classes due to coronavirusIn an unprecedented move, the University of Minnesota announced Wednesday it’s canceling all in-person classes across all five of its campuses, moving to online classes starting Monday due to concerns over the coronavirus outbreak.
The U, which has nearly 63,000 undergraduate and graduate students across the five campuses, is the first and largest of Minnesota’s universities and colleges to move classes online so students and staff can continue to participate from home and minimize group contact due to the outbreak. The U’s online-only classes will continue until at least April 1
http://www.startribune.com/university-of-minnesota-cancels-classes-due-to-coronavirus/568707692/

Right now there is no federal law requiring employers to give their employees sick leave.  So now there is a bill on the floor from Dems that mandated 14 days paid sick leave for workers in the event of a public health crisis, 7 days accrues in year 1, etc.  

GOP Senate voted it down.

We will see if they can hammer out something to help truckers, people in service industry and others who don’t get sick leave but with this GOP Senate I wouldn’t hold my breath.

@"MaroonBells" said: Wow....

https://twitter.com/SageRosenfels18/status/1237449732475293697?s=20

Yeah, DIA is never that empty. My goodness, this thing has really gotten ahold of people. But I suspect that it's going to make a far bigger dent in the global economy than the global population. 

What changes have you made? Personally, I have tickets to fly to San Francisco with my kids to see my brother in a couple of weeks. And, so far anyway, I plan to go. But I have to say I'm a little nervous about it, especially with my kids. Not as much about the virus as how people are panicking about it. A flight yesterday was rerouted to Denver because someone, um...sneezed. And I am narrowing in on some ridiculously priced tickets to Cancun in May. Am I crazy? 

Fly nowhere where I wouldnt' want to be in their hospitals
Buy no tix that are not completely refundable 

I dont think there is enough data or reliable data yet to predict how this thing will trend the next 6-8 weeks? 

The new coronavirus outbreak is now a pandemic. 

So what does that mean?
“Pandemic” has nothing to do with how serious the illness is. It just means a disease is spreading widely.
The head of the World Health Organization, which made the declaration Wednesday, said the U.N. health agency is deeply concerned about the alarming levels of spread.
But at the same time WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made clear the declaration didn't mean that countries should give up trying to contain the virus, which has infected more than 120,000 people around the world and killed more than 4,300.
“We should double down and we should be more aggressive. That's what we are saying,” Tedros said.
Some questions and answers about the declaration:
WHAT DOES THE DECLARATION DO?
The label triggers governments to activate preparedness plans and possibly take emergency procedures to protect the public, such as more drastic travel and trade restrictions.
WHO already had declared COVID-19 an international emergency. And where the virus hasn't yet spread, hospitals and clinics around the world have been preparing for a surge of coronavirus patients on top of the everyday illnesses they treat.
Dr. Michael Ryan, the WHO emergencies chief, cautioned that use of the word pandemic to describe the outbreak “is not a trigger for anything other than more aggressive, more intensive action.”
The term also is likely to stoke global anxiety, something the U.N. health agency was sensitive to. Previously, Tedros acknowledged the word itself "may certainly cause fear” without preventing any infection or saving a single life.
WHAT GOES INTO THE DECISION?
Exactly when enough places have enough infections to declare a pandemic isn’t a black-and-white decision. But generally, the WHO looks for sustained community outbreaks on different continents.
In other words, people who were in places where the virus was circulating have known risks. If they get sick, the chain of transmission is obvious. And as long as health authorities can trace those chains, an outbreak isn’t yet deemed out of control.
But when people start becoming infected without obvious links, that signals wider spread of an infection throughout a population, key for a pandemic declaration.
For flu, the WHO typically calls a pandemic when a new virus is spreading in two regions of the world; COVID-19 is now spreading in parts of four.
WHAT WAS THE LAST GLOBAL PANDEMIC?
The last disease the WHO declared a pandemic was a new flu strain, initially called “swine flu,” in 2009. That decision came after the new H1N1 flu had been spreading in multiple countries for about six weeks. Today, that strain is what’s known as “endemic” worldwide — it became part of every season’s regular flu outbreak.
This is the first time this kind of virus — a coronavirus — has been labeled a pandemic, “but at the same time, we believe that it will be the first also to be able to be contained or controlled," Tedros said.
OUTBREAK? EPIDEMIC? PANDEMIC? WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
An outbreak is a sudden rise in cases of a disease in a particular place. An epidemic is a large outbreak. A pandemic means a global epidemic.
Experts point out that the word “pandemic” is sure to reverberate, even though many people may not understand what it means.
"The word hasn't been suitably explained and made clear," said Ian Mackay, who studies viruses at Australia’s University of Queensland. “It has been kept in a drawer and only used at the worst time. So, of course people have fear of it.”
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN ABOUT THE DISEASE'S SEVERITY?
Pandemic is a scary word but it has nothing to do with how serious the illness is. It just means a disease is spreading widely. There can be pandemics of mild illness, like that H1N1 flu turned out to be in 2009.
Regular seasonal flu has a death rate of 0.1%. Exactly how lethal this new coronavirus will be isn't yet clear, and may vary from place to place especially as countries first grapple with an influx of cases.
But COVID-19 does seem less deadly than its cousins SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and MERS, Middle East respiratory syndrome, even though it is spreading more easily than those earlier outbreaks.
For most, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, and most recover in a couple of weeks. For a few, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illnesses, including pneumonia.

@"Vanguard83" said: Corona, SARS, West-Nile, Avian Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Ebola, the Damn mosquito-borne virus thingy..... Still waiting for one of these things to kill me, but DAMMIT....

Take away a man's toilet paper, and there really is no reason to live

I had a team of Israeli techs set to fly in next week but they are canceling because they were told they wouldn't be allowed to go home if they left....shits getting real when international business travel gets shut off.

Better cancel the NFL season just to be safe.

@"kmillard" said: Better cancel the NFL season just to be safe.

@"Vikergirl" said: https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1237915393974468610?s=19

Preventative actions don't make the virus disappear... whats the end game to canceling events? The virus isn't going to get frustrated and retreat...

@"SFVikeFan" said: Right now there is no federal law requiring employers to give their employees sick leave.  So now there is a bill on the floor from Dems that mandated 14 days paid sick leave for workers in the event of a public health crisis, 7 days accrues in year 1, etc.  

GOP Senate voted it down.

We will see if they can hammer out something to help truckers, people in service industry and others who don’t get sick leave but with this GOP Senate I wouldn’t hold my breath.